Monthly Archives: December 2010

COMPUTER MEMORY ISN’T the most exciting of product these days, as in broad terms – and the memory manufacturers wouldn’t agree with us of course – it’s much of a muchness. In saying that, Adata has announced two different DDR3L SO-DIMM’s which should prove popular not only in gaming notebooks, but also in mini-ITX boards that only accept SO-DIMMs.Read more▶

IT’S NO BIG surprise that Acer is one of AMD’s Brazos partners, but at least one of its products have made an appearance on the web ahead of the January launch. It’s not going to blow anyone’s mind when it comes to performance, especially as Acer has gone for a dual core Ontario CPU, but the upside should be decent battery life.Read more▶

AFTER HAVING SEEN that Intel’s upcoming Sandy Bridge processors had gone on sale in some parts of the world already we decided to head over to the computer market in Taipei to see if we couldn’t coax up a CPU, but alas, none of the shops we talked to had any in stock. On the other hand, we spotted plenty of motherboards, but they’re not going to be much good without a CPU.Read more▶

AMD LAUNCHED IT’S first new GPU architecture in four years last week, Cayman aka the HD6900 series. Lets take a look at the cards themselves, and how they perform, with a lot of emphasis on the new PowerTune feature.Read more▶

DESPITE SOME OBVIOUS advantages of its display technology, Pixel Qi has as yet to have a major breakthrough and has so far only mass produced a 10.1-inch screen that has as yet to make it into any retail products. However, things appear to be set to change come next year, as Pixel Qi has announced that they’ve teamed up with Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) in a manufacturing partnership.Read more▶

SLOWLY BUT SURELY details about AMD’s partners Brazos boards are starting to appear ahead of the actual launch which is set for early January as far as we’re aware and today it’s Jetway’s turn to show off its board. This time around it’s a board not intended for consumers, but rather for industrial PC applications and other vertical markets.Read more▶

Much to chagrin of graphics chip Etch-a-Sketcher’s everywhere, Elpida is rolling out its new DRAM chips on a 30nm process. Sampling of certain 4GB DDR3 SO-DIMM modules has already begun, and large-scale availability of these minified silicon marvels is expected in Q1 2011. Benefits of this process enhancement are good for everybody as chips will be smaller, cheaper, larger, and faster and consume less power to boot.Read more▶

IF YOU’RE DESPERATE to get your hands on Intel’s upcoming Sandy Bridge processors before they officially launch, it seems like you have to take a trip to Malaysia, as there the new processors have already gone on sale. Now they’re not supposed to be selling the processors early, but it seems like some local shops don’t really care.Read more▶

AMD’S ‘NORTHERN ISLANDS’ family of GPUs was perhaps the most frustrating product I have ever had to dig out information on. The reason for that is a long and complex development tale that has more twists and drama than your average mystery novel.Read more▶

SOMEWHAT UNEXPECTEDLY AFTER all the rumours earlier this year, EVGA have shown off its first LGA-1155 motherboard, the P67 Classified. At first glance the multitude of x16 PCI Express slots stand out, something you don’t expect to see on a P67 board, but that’s not the only unusual feature of this motherboard.Read more▶

NVIDIA’S FIRST DESIGN win as far as smartphones are concerned was announced today by LG in the shape of the Optimus 2X, an Android handset with a pretty rich feature set outside of the Tegra 2 processor. The Optimus 2X is equipped with a 1GHz dual core Tegra 2 processor, a 4-inch screen and some other goodies that should make this a really attractive Android handset in terms of features.Read more▶

YESTERDAY WE TOOK a look at MSI’s H67 boards and today we’ll take a closer look at some of its P67 boards, as although MSI has released details and pictures of some of its upcoming models, we have gotten our hands on some additional pictures and some information about some more models. MSI seems to have pulled out all stops to try and crowd the market with as many different models as possible, although we’re fairly certain that not all models will be on sale everywhere. Read more▶

MANY OF YOU might not remember the glory days – well, ok, they weren’t that glorious – when PowerVR was a name that you had to consider when you bought a desktop 3D graphics card, but the company behind the technology is still alive and kicking, more so than ever and they are buying Caustic Graphics. Ok, hang on; let’s start from the beginning shall we, as neither of these companies is that well known outside of their respective circles, so let’s take a look at what’s going on here.Read more▶

GPUS DON’T CHANGE architectures very often, but when they do, it is big news. AMD’s new Radeon HD6900 GPUs are the largest single change from that company in three and a half years, so lets dive in to the architecture.Read more▶

WE’VE COVERED BOTH Asus and Gigabyte’s upcoming LGA-1155 boards in some detail, so we figured it was time to take a look at what MSI has up its sleeve. Today we’ll take a closer look at MSI’s H67 mATX boards which consists of at least four different models, although there might be more models coming.Read more▶

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Charlie Demerjian is the founder of Stone Arch Networking Services and SemiAccurate.com. SemiAccurate.com is a technology news site; addressing hardware design, software selection, customization, securing and maintenance, with over one million views per month. He is a technologist and analyst specializing in semiconductors, system and network architecture. As head writer of SemiAccurate.com, he regularly advises writers, analysts, and industry executives on technical matters and long lead industry trends. Charlie is also a council member with Gerson Lehman Group.

Thomas Ryan is based in Seattle, Washington. Thomas first began to appreciate the wonders of the semiconductor industry while doing research on his previous favorite hobby, PC gaming. Having co- purchased his first computer at the ripe old age of 11, with $150 and the help of Craigslist he's been buying and building computers ever since.

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